Will Arsenal sign a marquee striker? Surely not even Arsene Wenger believes it now

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Two words I really hate – marquee signing. They have dogged me all summer. Been my first thought in the morning and have kept me awake nights. And still, with hours to go now, unless you think that a lanky Ligue Two player on a freebie fits the bill Arsenal still haven’t made a marquee signing.

And you know what I am beginning to think that even Arsene Wenger is starting to realise that it is not going to happen. Sure Arsenal can strengthen the squad by adding Cabaye and Flamini, but a marquee singing, let alone a striker that is going to rip through Premiership defences, forget it. There simply isn’t anyone.

Most of our best bets – Jovetic, Higuain, Bony, Benteke etc have either made their move or signed new contracts at existing clubs. Suarez and Rooney simply aren’t going to happen and Lewandowski is hardly going to fancy moving to the Premiership for one season before joining his old buddies at Bayern. Even Jose has suddenly got very protective of Juan Mata (Ok, so I know he isn’t a striker, but I’d love to see him in the hole behind Giroud).

Our only throw of the dice is if Madrid realise that they will have to ship players out to fund moves for Bale and Suarez. And ironically none of the trio seem very keen on a move away from Spain anyhow. We have been there before with players who didn’t really want to come (Reyes, Baptista etc) it never really works does it?

So it seems that Arsenal’s whole summer windows transfer strategy rests on a massive bid for player in the last 48 hours, who almost certainly won’t take the bait. Wenger will then be able to affect his gallic shrug of the shoulders and Arsenal will once again just about cling on to fourth place. If we spend more than half of the mooted £100 million war chest I will be amazed.

It will all come back to bite the club and the manager too. Defeat to Spurs on Sunday, with no reinforcements looking likely on Monday, and we will be back to fans having a pop at each other in the East Stand. It was very noticeable too how small the crowd was last night – I wonder if lower attendances could well become a feature of this season.

So what do you think? Has Wenger still got a master plan? Will we sign a marquee player. Is Sanogo really going to be our second choice striker this season?